Valparaiso law school under fire; dean says remediation underway

The American Bar Association has censured the Valparaiso University School of Law because the school is not in compliance with the association's admissions standards.

The ruling, made in late October and released Wednesday, was in response to the law school's request for the appeal of a June finding that the law school was not in compliance with ABA standards and had to take specific remedial actions.

"Everything they asked us to do we were doing long before they asked us," said Andrea Lyon, who took over as dean of the law school in July 2014.

At the time, she said the school had just undergone an accreditation review by the ABA, done every seven years.

"It was very positive, then we got a notice that our admission standards were not in compliance with the rules," she said, adding the school appealed the ruling because they were already making changes.

In the face of declining enrollment, Lyon said her mission when she took over the law school was to "right-size" the department. Toward that end, the school announced faculty buyouts in late February.

By early June, 12 faculty took the buyouts, two retired and seven positions were eliminated, she said.

Lyon said in February that at its peak, the school had 600 students and while the number of students at law schools nationwide has been dropping for 40 years, the decline became precipitous with the recession several years ago. The number of students taking the LSAT, a standardized test required for law school admission, has dropped 50 percent nationwide since 2009.

Valparaiso University announced Friday that in the wake of declining enrollment for its law school, it is offering buyouts to tenured faculty and faculty members with multi-year contracts.

The school has 21 tenured faculty and six with multi-year contracts and any of them could be eligible for...

Valparaiso University announced Friday that in the wake of declining enrollment for its law school, it is offering buyouts to tenured faculty and faculty members with multi-year contracts.

The school has 21 tenured faculty and six with multi-year contracts and any of them could be eligible for...

(Amy Lavalley)

The law school currently has about 375 students.

Remedial action requested by the ABA, and already underway, Lyon said, includes coming up with and submitting a compliance plan; submit admissions data and methodology; provide students with bar exam passage rates for the school; and notify students of the censure, as well as putting a notice on the school's website.

Lyon, who expects the notice to go online this weekend, said it's hard to say what impact the censure might have on the school. In the past, when the ABA found an area where a school wasn't in compliance, the school was notified, given time to correct the problem, and subjected to a follow-up site visit.

The action was not made public, a position that has changed, she said, adding she wouldn't speculate on the change.

"Does it make things more difficult? Yes. Does it mean we will have a smaller class? I don't know," she said, adding the school would address the concerns and take the notice down when appropriate.

She said she can't rewrite the history of the school before the accreditation visit, before she was at the helm, but she can propel the school forward.

"We have a wonderful law school. It's been around 137 years and it's going to be around another 137, at least," she said.